>> 31 Aug 2004

Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit

Remember that Chas n' Dave hit from the early 1980's? What a classic! The words are relevant to today's news that the Northern Ireland Secretary is about to begin another drive to achieve the enthronement of Irish separatism and, more specifically, armed Irish separatism at the heart of devolved government in a part of the United Kingdom.

Auntie Beeb tells us Paul Murphy 'will hold talks with the parties at Stormont on Wednesday, and they will concentrate on issues arising out of a review of the good Friday Agreement.' Naturally, the proceedings will have the endure the presence of Ireland's Foreign Minister, Brian Cowen, because British ministers are not even able to cough so it would seem without asking the permission of ministers from a hostile, politically backward nation which insists on poking its foul nose into Ulster's internal matters.

Let's get one thing clear. The success or failure of these talks will depend purely on the degree of the DUP's lust for power. A far as Sinn Fein/IRA are concerned, they will only regurgitate the offers of yesteryear: the end of the IRA in return for 'a process of sustainable change' (aka the irreversible thrust towards a 'united' Ireland). Terrorists only ever completely disappear in the event of their aims being achieved, or their defeat by democratic opponents. Neither the DUP nor the Ulster Unionists should be within 400 ft of these talks: Direct Rule is proving popular with a majority of Northern Ireland's people. Why should their contentment be quashed to satisfy the demands of nationalist Ireland?

The Times has an awful pictureof twelve Nepalese men taken hostage in Iraq by the Jihadi and now executed in a mass slaughter. The Islamofascists behind these murders need hunted down and killed, one by one. There is no way one can be "nuanced" in dealing with this evil - it needs confronted and defeated. The entire Western "anti-war" movement gives encouragement and comfort to the barbarians that have perpetrated this deed. They think that if they kill enough people, we will shrug and walk away. It's called the UN approach - and it's something that must be resolutely rejected.

The Republic of Ireland, that feared economic tiger, is on it's way to becoming one of the most indebted countries in the world, according to figures released by it's Central Bank. Each man, woman and child owed €45,000 0R €153 BILLION collectively. Mmmm...how I'd like a slice of the interest of THAT!

I note that Hamas have exploded two busesalmost simultaneously in southern Israel on Tuesday, killing at least 15 people and wounding more than 80 in the first major Palestinian attack inside Israel in nearly six months.

My loathing of terrorism increases every time I read about these horrors inflicted upon innocent Israelis by these Palestinian monsters. One cannot have lived through three decades of similar IRA barbarism in Northern Ireland without feeling an abiding sense of sympathy for what so many Israeli families must be going through RIGHT NOW. Making arrangements to bury mums and dads, sons and daughters, husbands and wives. Utterly depraved - and all the time, the UN and EU look on and castigate Sharon and brave little Israel.

"The Arabs have roiled the world for decades with their furious protest that their land has been "stolen" from them. One might take seriously such a statement if it came from a pacifist people such as the Tibetans, who had quietly inhabited their land for ages before it was seized by the Communist Chinese in 1950. The claim is laughable coming from the Arabs, who in the early Middle Ages conquered and reduced to slavery and penury ancient peoples and civilizations stretching from the borders of Persia to the Atlantic; who in 1947 rejected an Arab state in Palestine alongside a Jewish state and sought to obliterate the nascent Jewish state; who never called for a distinct Palestinian Arab state until the creation of the terrorist PLO in 1964—sixteen years after the founding of the state of Israel; and who to this moment continue to seek Israel's destruction, an object that would be enormously advanced by the creation of the Arab state they demand. The Arab claim to sovereign rights west of the Jordan is only humored today because of a fatal combination of world need for Arab oil, leftist Political Correctness that has cast the Israelis as "oppressors," and, of course, good old Jew-hatred." Amen to that Lawrence.

Hillary Clinton has just visited Northern Ireland (for any of you who slept through it all). Senator Clinton gave the 'Tip O'Neil' peace lecture at Ulster University's Magee Campus in Londonderry. In typical Clinton style the lecture was long on Smaltz, short on appropriate condemnation. I have provided a link to the Independent's article, which gives an expurgated account of this latest example of US interference in British domestic affairs.

First off, dear Hillary recalls how she saw the 'hope on people's faces' after her first visit to Belfast in 1995. Lest we forget that during that same visit, members of the IRA were gathering in one of South Armagh's many cesspits to plan the outrage at Canary Wharf; an attack which took the lives of two innocent bystanders. Why was there no mention of that during her speech? Mind you, we are talking about a woman who stupidly insisted on standing by her salacious, lying husband despite his numerous extra-marital affairs. That in itself speaks volumes!!

Secondly, Hillary opines on the 'success' of the peace process, claiming that Northern Ireland holds out a beacon of hope in the quest for global stability. Really? And there's me thinking that every terrorist group throughout the world was now totally aware of the piecemeal attitude of the United States towards certain groups! In the eyes of some in the US today it is the Orwellian view of 'Irish terrorist good, every other terrorist bad'.

Finally, Hillary laments the passing of an opportunity to restore devolved government. Isn't it strange how so many people in Northern Ireland couldn't give a monkey's toss for the return of Stormont. Need I add it's probably because they, unlike Hillary and Bill, have actually ingested the 'gall' of devolution and have no desire for a repeat session.

Surprisingly little attention has been paid by much of our televisual media to the plight of two French journalists captured in Iraq and threatened with execution should the French Government refuse to revoke a law banning the wearing of conspicuous religious accoutrements in state schools. One BBC correspondent on this morning's Breakfast programme said 'these actions against French citizens is something the country thought it would never see.'

In that sentence there lies the fundamental rebuttal to all anti-war protestors in France and beyond, for they argued that France's refusal to enter the war of liberation in Iraq coupled with a rigorous pro-Islamic foreign policy (especially where the Middle East is concerned), would immunise France from the onslaught of radical Islamic terror apparently unleashed by the Allied action against Saddam and his cronies.

Wake up and smell the coffee you snail-eating surrender monkeys! Did you honestly believe you could escape the ramifications of terrorism on the rampage because your government took the cowards way out over Iraq? The removal of Saddam was a crucial step in the war on international terror and genocidal despotism - be it Islamic or otherwise. We now know terrorists and insurgents were active in Iraq long before Saddam's demise, with their lust for murder and Islamic supremacy dovetailing nicely with Saddam Hussain's brutalising ambitions against the Iraqi people. If anything, the kidnap of these two unfortunate men should convince Chirac and Co. to be proactive in Iraq, not crowing from the sidelines. A new wave of Muslim radicals will take action against the citizens of any country perceived in their warped minds to be oppressive to the unfettered progeny of Islam - domestically or internationally. The fact that so many of them were based in Iraq with Saddam's discreet complicity, and are now threatening the decision-making processes of Western democracies, is all the more reason to wipe them out with commitment and force.

Wobbles. That's how "The Scotsman" writer George Kerevan characterises the murder of 185 people during the IRA "cease-fire." I waded through the utter bilge in this article and concluded that it may indeed be possible to fool some of the people all of the time. Kerevan makes some claims that require clarification;-

"The last ten years have seen a transformation for the good" - Really?

Well, good for terrorist scum, good for pondlife parasitic criminals, good for fat- cat politicians, good for appeasement friendly journalists, good for cash-in convicts. Not so good for redundant gallant RUC officers, redundant Prison officers, those poor souls who suffer from paramilitary "justice" by having their limbs blown off, business men forced to pay up to keep the IRA, UVF and UDA in the style to which they have become accustomed.

Kerevan think explains that "Sinn Fein members sit on the IRA Army Council" Really? Then, if he's right, these loathsome creatures are terrorists and should be arrested and jailed, if not executed.

Finally, he wonders - using the language of the IRA - if the DUP can move from being "rejectionists" to deal deliverers. He speculates that the final sign that NI will have reached "normality" is when former IRA killers and former RUC men, patrol together in the shiny new PSNI. Unbelievable.

Anybody here ever watch "The Royle Family" - the superb Caroline Ahern award written comedy? There's a wonderful dopy character in it called Dave..played by Craig Cash - and he always reminds me of SDLP Leader Mark Durkan.

Mark (Dave) has been generously provided with a platform on the BBC this morning (where else) to pontificate about the imminent September talks on the N.I. political process. His great thought for the day is that Government must not focus on the "extremists" in the process. By "extremists" he means the IRA's political proxies on the one hand, and the Democratic Unionist Party on the other. In Mark's exotic imagination, it is valid to equate quasi-terrorists with democrats in order that he and his wretched party of has-beens can posture as respectable fair-minded moderates! Tree-mendus standards of hypocrisy, Mark!

The decline of the SDLP is directly linked to its inablity to sufficiently differentiate itself from Sinn Fein/IRA. By trying to outgreen the brownshirts, Durkan does his Party no favours. By trying to characterise the largest unionist Party as "extreme" all he does is highlight his own detachment from reality and irrelevance from the political process.

Mark Durkan, leader of the irrelevant SDLP, has admonished the Government for what he claims is its collective concentration on placating the more 'extremist elements threatening the political process.' What he fails to mention is how the 'moderates' of the UUP and SDLP came to be marginalised in the first place, thus allowing the 'extremists' to take over the mantle of Ulster's political scene. I assume his lack of honesty would preclude him from admitting that the central thrust of the SDLP over 7 years was always the elevation of common nationalist principles over the desirability of forming a coalition with fellow democrats.

There were numerous occasions after 1998 when the SDLP had the chance to cut violent terrorism adrift and form a coalition with MLA's wholly committed to peaceful means. It chose to manacle itself to Sinn Fein/IRA instead. This move had nothing to do with motivations of bringing republicanism into the constitutional fold, and everything to do with maximising a separatist agenda and sacrificing stability into the bargain. The relationship between the two seapratist parties is something like the mating ritual of the praying mantis: the SDLP may have fertilised Sinn Fein/IRA, but it has allowed itself to be devoured for its efforts. The Government is certainly ignoring the SDLP due to its electoral decline. Nonetheless, Mr Durkan's party has orchestrated its own demise, thus creating the situation it now finds itself in.

"In choosing a president, we really don't choose a Republican or Democrat, a conservative or liberal. We choose a leader.

And in times of danger, as we are now in, Americans should put leadership at the core of their decision. There are many qualities that make a great leader but having strong beliefs, being able to stick with them through popular and unpopular times, is the most important characteristic of a great leader.

Winston Churchill saw the dangers of Hitler while his opponents characterized him as a warmongering gadfly.

Ronald Reagan saw and described the Soviet Union as "the evil empire" while world opinion accepted it as inevitable and belittled Ronald Reagan's intelligence.

President Bush sees world terrorism for the evil that it is. John Kerry has no such clear, precise and consistent vision. This is not a personal criticism of John Kerry. I respect him for his service to our nation."

>> 30 Aug 2004

McCartney Magic!

It's always good to see an article from Bob McCartney in a newspaper. The powers-that-be have done more to silence this politician than any other observer of the 'peace process.' The degree to which prejudice takes place in the media is best illustrated by the degree of access to terrestrial television enjoyed by Bob McCartney in comparison to David Ervine. After all the, the UKUP and PUP have had similar percentages of votes over the last few years. However, in contemporary Northern Ireland, it is deemed wiser to give greater amounts of airtime to a balding UVF terrorist with a monopoly on verbosity than it is to someone who has presciently highlighted every repugnant machination involving HM Government and Sinn Fein/IRA.

Of all the Unionist parties in the Assembly, the UKUP was the only one which would not entertain terrorism in any shape or form. That principled stance persuaded me to leave the DUP in 1997 and join the UKUP. Although no longer a member, I enjoy cordial relations with all the party's main players. Once could never imagine the UKUP entertaining armed terrorists in government, which is why McCartney is so often silenced by a media sect in thrall to government propaganda about the so-called 'benefits' of an armed and false peace.

The only part of the submission I have my doubts about is the timing of the DUP entry into an executive involving Sinn Fein/IRA. That said, McCartney's prediction about the IRA pocketing concessions from democrats and thence rubbing their noses in the dirt is spot on. How many times have we seen the representatives of three democratically elected governments prostrating themselves in front of Sinn Fein, only to see the most nugatory of reciprocated moves from an illegal militia?

The naked ugliness and depravity of the so-called Northern Ireland "peace process" is manifest in this story. An IRA terrorist now provides tourists with a running commentary on a "terror tour" bustrip around Belfast. The person concerned, Jim McVeigh, was the last IRA commander in the now closed Maze prison (Here in Northern Ireland we close prisons, by the way..it's sooo civilised, don't you think?)

McVeigh was jailed for 31 years in 1992 for conspiring to murder soldiers. McVeigh, the Provisional IRA's Maze commanding officer, on being releases said that his men left "unbowed and unbroken". Now he gets to peddle his murderous propaganda with the blessing of the authorities. Still, as the article puts it, "he gets to tell his truth" about what happened. His victims are unable to.

The dumbing down continues. Officials who were accused of a “ludicrous dumbing down” of a Shakespeare test for 14-year-olds have been criticised again by teachers for setting questions that have no bearing on the plays. Read the details here.

Get this - the Qualification and Curriculum Authority - the people who "maintain standards" were condemned by English teachers last year for setting a question on Henry V that simply asked studentsto write about people they admired. Another, on Twelfth Night, told teenagers that Malvolio was a character who did not like people to enjoy themselves, then asked them to write a speech for school assembly on banning chips from the canteen menu.

Bethan Marshall, a lecturer in education at King’s College London, and spokeswoman for the London Association of Teachers of English, described the paper as “feeble”, saying: “It has absolutely nothing to do with Macbeth or Shakespeare. This is just about the only proper piece of literature that students are required to study at Key Stage 3 and the test just downgrades Shakespeare completely.”

Is it any wonder exam results rise each year - we have removed the acquisition of knowledge from education!

Well, this has been certainly the oddest story of the Olympic games. A man who is a former Irish Priest, inebriated following his sojourn at a local taverna, and dressed in a kilt and beret, attacked the Brazilian runner and then leader of the Marathon, De Lima, before being dragged off.

Gold medal for wacko-ness beyond the call of duty to the man in the kilt!

My congratulations this morning must go the British Olympic team (Paula Radcliffe is exempt from my praise as she saw fit to cry at the roadside like a spoilt child on two occasions). The United Kingdom has a medal tally of 30, the highest number since the Los Angeles games of 1984.

I am particularly proud of Matthew Pincent, Kelly Holmes and boxing sensation, Amir Khan. The latter has one hell of good future in boxing is he keeps focused and disciplined. Well done, guys, you have done us proud!!

>> 29 Aug 2004

SICK BEYOND BELIEF.

A memorial to victims of an IRA bomb attack in County Down has been vandalised, just two days after it was unveiled. Wreaths and crosses laid at Narrow Water, near Warrenpoint, were damaged in the early hours of Sunday. It was 25 years ago when IRA scum murdered 18 soldiers at this location and the memorial to the young men slaughtered was unveiled the other day. Now, this has happened. People ask; what sort of animal could do this? The answer is the sort that endorse Sinn Fein/IRA, the organisation directly responsible for the murders all those years ago.

'Kristelnacht', on 9th November 1938, represented one of the most shockingly evil moments of Nazi rule. It symbolised the intensification of Nazi efforts to crush the Jewish people in Hitler's Germany. If we move the chronological clock forward to 2004, we see a analogous series of events perpetrated by republicans on the Unionist people of Northern Ireland.

Of course there are those who would roundly condemn me for being so blatant in my analogies, but the underlying aim of the Nazis and their contemporary brethren in the apostolic school of Irish republicanism is exactly the same, even if their methods and degree of intimidation differ. Over recent weeks we have had a whole new series of urban thoroughfares where Protestant feet have been unwelcome; we have seen Orange Halls burnt to the ground; people have been forced to move from North Belfast's Torrens estate due to republican intimidation; another series of nationalist protests against Unionist culture have continued apace; Mitchell McLaughlin has castigated the NIO for allegedly following a 'Unionist agenda' (whatever the hell that may mean!); and the Narrow Water memorial to victims of another IRA slaughter has been vandalised.

If the members and disciples of Sinn Fein/IRA were simply open about what they really are - odious, intolerant, terrorist-loving cretins who have about as much right to live on God's clean earth as an amoeba, then the rest of us would know where we stand. However, when their insatiable desire to extirpate even the smallest minutiae of British culture from the island of Ireland is disguised beneath woolly terms such as 'an Ireland of equals', then the ire provoked by such hypocrisy raises the blood pressure ever so slightly.

Summarily, we are faced with a situation where republicans demand a role in co-piloting the good ship 'Ulster', when all they really want to do is to plough it into the iceberg of republican constitutional aspirations and drown every Unionist passenger into the bargain. If I was the captain of the ship, my response to republican requests would be to go forth and urinate. Peter Robinson please take note.

Proving that being a fruitcake in the Jackson household is NOT the sole preserve of brother Michael, Janet Jackson now believes that evil US President George W. used her.. ahem.."wardrobe malfunction" at the Superbowl to distract the country from the problems with the war in Iraq. Apparently, Janet is also sorry that she said sorry for the incident. Well, that clears it up then -one more example of the running dogs of conservatism using a poor innocent creature whose only crime was to bare her talent at the Superbowl. Ugh!

Dr Jerry Vlasak, a US trauma surgeon and former vivisectionist attracted the attention of the Home Office for his widely publicised statement at a conference in Washington, in which he said: "I don't think you'd have to kill too many [researchers]. I think for five lives, 10 lives, 15 human lives, we could save a million, 2 million, 10 million non-human lives."

Well, that's not too many, is it? Unless, of course, the researcher killed is your father, or son, or brother or husband. Then it's not so good really.

Just for once, UK Home Secretary David "Bet he subscribes to the Spectator" Blunkett has done the right thing and banned this disgusting creep from coming to the UK. Vlasak is outraged. Good.

Alternatively, Blunkett should allow him in - then let Huntingdon Life Sciences, the Cambridge-based laboratory, use HIM for medical research.

I understand that some people are genuinely concerned about how animals are treated when it comes to the area of medical research. But wackos like Vlasak give them all a bad name.

If true, and he has been unwell, this will indeed cause a major ripple within unionism and a tsunami within the DUP. Paisley has been the dominant personality within Unionism for years, hated by the liberal media but loved by an admiring section of the pro-Union electorate. He now leads the largest Unionist Party, which he also founded. His evengelical style of rhetoric has antagonised many, and within the DUP there IS an "evangelical" wing who follow "The Doc" as they have christened him, and the "pragmatic" wing led by Peter Robinson. The DUP may pretend otherwise but there IS some friction between these wings. How will this now develop?

I find much to admire in both men. Paisley is an immensely personable man who I have had the privilege to meet with on several occasions. He is amusing, confronting, intelligent and .. decisive. I appreciate that some have a problem with his religious views but at a political level - I do like him and agree with much of what he says. In my recent public ding-dong with his son, I was careful to quote Ian Snr because he has been relatively consistent. His son is a very pale shadow, though I am sorry his dad is clearly unwell.

Robinson, by contrast, is a cold fish. I must be honest with readers and say that I find little to warm to with him. Yet he is an excellent strategist whose skill in presenting the DUP electorally is second to none. He is a pragmatist, and effective administrator, a man who gets things done. As a number two he is very successful - but as a Leader?

Is it possible that should the Doc now hang up his boots, Robinson - so long the Deputy - may not get the silver star as Leader. Might Nigel Dodds get the starring role? What about wee Jeffrey? One thing is for sure - the DUP without Dr. Paisley as dynamic leader will be something of an unknown.

In all of this, my sincerest wish would be for Ian Paisley to do what is best for his health to ensure that his life is not cut short. He is a workaholic but time catches up with us all. As he prepares to step back - who will step up to the plate?

Supposing I was a journalist working for a British national newspaper and I had written the following:

'Britain's Asians are, at heart, a group of fanatical bigots who only came to this country to set up their own ghettoised communities and sponge off the welfare state. They have no interest whatsoever in integrating with British society. Their only game is domination.'

I am certain that I would have been rightly condemned for such disgraceful stereotyping and dismissed from my post. You see, here in Britain we have a tolerance of minorities which is exemplary. There are those of us who believe immigration to the UK is out of control, but we would never translate our feelings on immigration into raw bigotry or hatred for ethnic communities. For my part, my only generalisation concerns people who think it is 'cool' to vote for a band of unrepentant terrorists (Sinn Fein voters take note!).

In the Irish Republic they have no such sensitivities. Today's Sunday Business Post proves that point. It has not one, but two articles, which portray Ulster's pro-Union community in such a jaundiced fashion, similar remarks made about blacks or Asians would be appropriately barred. In the first, Sean McCarthy prattles on about the fallacious 'superiority complex' of Northern Unionists, stating that 'the ugly truth is that many of the North's Unionists are bigots, who nurture a dislike of Catholics and would rather have direct rule from Westminster than share power with them.' McCarthy never lets the truth get in the way of good old-fashioned sectarianism. Unionist people, in the main, simply have an aversion to sharing power with apologists for murder and mayhem: nothing more, nothing less.

The second article, which passes for an 'editorial' in this tabloid toilet tissue, states 'a significant number of Unionists are quite simply anti-Catholic bigots. For many, the entire North is like an Orange march - the whole point is to keep the Fenians down.' Now anyone who had actually been to Northern Ireland and travelled through such places as the Malone Road, Culmore and Lawrencetown would know that 'Fenians' are anything but subordinate in the Province. The size and style of houses across Ulster - spanning both communities - would shame much of what passes for private dwellings, either here on the mainland or in the Irish Republic.

We must not forget that this drivel is published in a Sunday newspaper located in a country that is so culturally backwards, its state radio station still insists on playing the Angelus twice a day; and where one of its own celebrity sons (Graham Norton) professed to finding it easier to be gay than Protestant in his youth. If anybody still thinks that Northern Catholics are eternally oppressed, perhaps they would like to look at this submission from Jenny McCartney. Meanwhile, I'll write down my view of the Irish as 'people who are shallow, insincere, two-faced, thick, obsessively religious and who only learned to stop breeding like rabbits over the last 15 years.' There you go you see, racial stereotypes ARE infuriating and insulting after all. Please remember that before spending your hard-earned euros on a copy of the Sunday Business Post. Thank you.

Well, who would have thought it? John Humphries, that leftist hellspawn from the BBC "Today" flagship morning programme and I are in full agreement!

He has written a very well constructed argumenton the dumbing down of British TV. He is right about the vulgarity of TV, of the squalidness of so-called Reality TV shows, of the coarsening effect it has on society in general.

Just two additional observations;

1. The BBC, his employer, is as guilty as any other broadcaster in this vulgarisation..and

2. If we accept the idea that society has been dumbed down by this 24 hour assault on our senses, might that explain why the superficiality of the new Labour project has such enduring appeal - dumbed down politics for a dumbed down nation?

I know I have mentioned this before but the UK "Spectator" magazine constantly annoys me with its anti-American rhetoric. In the current edition there are two article that sicken me.

The first is the cosmically stupid editorial which seeks to blame the decline of West Indian CRICKET on...yip...America! The argument employed is so pathetic that I won't waste my time repeating it but it tells you all you need to know about the editorial insight of the Spectator.

The second is an article by Ella Windsor entitled, "American food sucks." Well, can I just say that American food is like British food, good and bad! It is certainly less expensive, less riddled with the likes of BSE, and far more varied. I enjoy American food, find US Supermarkets excellent, find US restaurants superb and dispute Ella Windsor's prejudices.

Let me be clear - I am a BIG fan of the music made by the man in black - Johnny Cash. So I was entertained to read that a tribute to the great man at the Republican convention, which meets with the approval of his family, has got the liberals all in a tizzy.

Tennessee Republican Party chairwoman Beth Harwell said it was "a way for us to honour a great Tennessean". "A lot of the Tennessee delegates love Johnny Cash's music," she said. It will also honour Senator Lamar Alexander, who was a friend of Cash and his late wife June Carter Cash.

Liberals should stop whinging, put on their Barbra Streisand CD's and give us a break.

(Whilst on the subject of Johnny Cash, let me also say how sorry I am to here of the current troubles of his daughter, Carlene. I have always loved her music and have had the pleasure of seeing her perform in concert several times. She seems to be caught up in a serious drugs problem and I really hope things work out.)

I see that there is speculationin the Irish Press that the fragrant Liz O'Donnell may stand for leadership of the Progressive Democrats replacing Mary Harney. Now not so long ago, I got into hot water for making some waspish comment about the panoramic size of Mary Harney's face! People took this the wrong way - I LIKE Mary Harney, hope she stays in her current role, and that the calculating if photogenicMs O'Donnell stays where she is! Now, who's hungry...

Those cheese-eating surrender monkeys aka the French are in serious economic turmoil. Whilst the Great Satan under the diktat of Bush and the neo-con VRWC records 4.5% year on year economic growth, la belle France under the enlightened munificence of Chirac records...em..1.5%.

Stephen Moore has a useful take on France's pathetic economic performance over hereon NRO. He points out that which any sensible economist accepts, namely that the economic sclerosis that characterises France is caused by its love-in with socialist policies. The obese welfare system so beloved of France and the chattering classes in the UK has ensured that net job creation THIS CENTURY has been..em...zero.

Then there is the impact of the US boycott of French goods. This has been ameliorated by the EUweenies but we ALL know that they lie all the time!

So here are a few pesky economic facts;

The value of French wine exports fell by 10% in the first five months of this year!

Californian, Chilean and Australian wine sales overtook French sales for the first time ever!

French business investment is a humble 1% growth per annum.

Stephen points out that whilst we conservatives welcome global free trade this cannot be at the price of adjusting Foreign and national-security issues. France is NOT a military ally - 60 years after the US liberated France from the Nazis, France has chosen to turn its back on the US.

That is why Americans, and Brits, should think twice whether their chosen wine comes from the Napa of the Loire valley. And I'll drink to that.

>> 28 Aug 2004

THE BODY SHOP AND ISRAEL.

I missed this when it came out but it is worth reminding readers. Seems that the Body Shop provides charitable donations to an oraganisation dedicated to ensuring the "right of return" to "Palestinians"to Israel. The tousled haired Dame Anita Roddick also believes the US President is"a war criminal."Nice.

"The Body Shop should explain to its upscale and nature-loving customers worldwide why George Bush is implicitly likened to the Nazis, and why the JewishState of Israel, and Israel alone, should be subjected to a rule granting citizenship to people who have never set foot within its borders, and most of whom wish to drastically alter the nature of its polity and society.

A company which condemns the testing of cosmetic products on animals somehow finds itself allied with groups dedicated to the destruction of the Jewish state, some of which use terror bombing of innocent civillians going about their daily lives. That's a very strange value to be driven by."

That's the war against drugs. More teenagers than ever are taking drugs, it has emerged and the rise is most alarming among girls, according to official figures. A Department of Health study found that more than one in five under-15s had tried drugs in the past year. Having said that, given Labour's ambivalence on the Drug issue, man, is anyone surprised?

"When Bill Clinton ran for president in 1992, the Democrats didn’t want to talk about his refusal to serve in Vietnam, his burning of the American flag on foreign soil while protesting the war, or his anti-American diatribe while soldiers were fighting, and dying in that Southeast Asian country. They didn’t want to compare his military avoidance record with the World War II heroic accomplishments of his opponent, President George H.W. Bush.

In 1996, when President Clinton ran against another highly decorated WW II vet, Senator Robert Dole, the Democrats once again dodged the issue of military service and heroism.

Now, in 2004, with a nominee that has a highly questionable record of service in the war that the Democrats repudiated for decades, they apparently want Vietnam to be the centerpiece of his campaign. Suddenly, donning a uniform and fighting for our country has become an important credential for a Chief Executive. When Bill and Hillary Clinton took over in the White House, they made it clear that they didn’t want to see a military uniform on the premises. Such was the contempt they had for anyone with the courage to stand up for America. Now, they are, at least ostensibly, supporting John Kerry for the highest office in the land. Either they have done a complete about face concerning the military, or they feel a strong kinship with Mr. Kerry because of his highly publicized verbal attacks on the soldiers during the early 70’s when he was attempting to build his political career. Evidently, Kerry is not the only flip flopping politician on the national scene. "

What is happening to Britain's high streets? It doesn't seem to matter where you go to shop, each and every town has the same shops and the same geographical layout. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for the trappings of capitalism, but I'm most definitely not in favour of architectural and retail indistinction the length and breadth of the UK.

At one time you could visit a chosen town because it had an outlet you couldn't find anywhere else. In Bradford, for example, we had Brown and Muff's - a small version of Allders or John Lewis's. That store has long since disappeared and has been replaced with a Virgin Megastore, a KFC, Boots and one of those horrible charity shops where you can buy 5,000 paperback books for £1.

Bradford is no the only casualty of this high street elementarity. These days not only are the shops identical, but so is the appearance of our town centres. Whether it be Manchester, Bradford, Hull, Nottingham or Coventry, out towns invariably contain a number of tacky mock-Victorian lampposts, wrought iron rubbish bins with the date embossed on the side in cheap gold lettering, a pedestrianised walkway (replete with terraxo-style paving stones), and cheap statue dedicated to some historical non-entity covered with a blanket of verdigris.

Napoleon once remarked we British were a 'nation of shopkeepers.' If he is looking down on our town centres today, G-d knows what he is thinking!!

This week, Bigoted Bri (BB) concentrates on the re-shuffle in the Irish Republic's cabinet. Customarily exaggerating the degree to which Northern Ireland influences the internal politics of the Irish State, BB expresses disappointment that the present incumbent at the DFA, Brian Cowen, has 'been a disappointment for northern nationalists, never developing any agenda to drive the Good Friday Agreement.' Presumably BB is slightly pissed off at the fact that Cowen could never make good his aspiration to see all vestiges of Britishness removed from the governance of Northern Ireland. Me thinks BB would only have been satisfied with the sight of Cowen on horseback, leading an army of genocidal maniacs across the border with the express intention of forcibly removing every Unionist from the island of Ireland.

BB dangles the prospect of IRA disbandment in front of an wearied electorate, stating that 'it is entirely in the interest of republicans to surrender weapons and stand down the IRA in order to compete with Fianna Fail in the Republic's next election.' Mmmm, let's look at how the retention of a fully-armed Provisional movement has hampered Sinn Fein's success so far shall we, folks! In 1996, two years after the so-called 'ceasefire', Sinn Fein received 116,377 votes at the Forum elections. At last year's Assembly elections they received 162, 758 votes. Simultaneously, they have increased representation exponentially in the Republic, and have received an incalculable plethora of undeserved concessions due to the threat of a private army.

Correct me if I'm wrong, people, but the presence of the IRA hasn't done much to stymie the growth of Sinn Fein as they seek to ingratiate themselves with an ever more disgusting electorate. As long as the IRA hovers in the background, Sinn Fein will accrue strength - not see it diminished. Irish people have prostrated themselves by the thousand at the feet of these murderers, so why should the political fumigation of cordite further increase their appeal?

Sometime, when listening to politicians lying throught their teeth, it is hard to decide whether to be furious or just laugh. Such is the case with these comments from NIO Education Minister Barry Gardiner. The intrepid Barry has decided, in a way best know only to him, that abolishing academic selection will not harm our academic standards. Of course the fact that the majority of people in NI approve of maintaining academic selection is irrelevant to Mr. Gardiner. He is leftist ideologue and he seeks to destroy academic standards all in the name of "equality.." The Northern Ireland Grammar schools are now panicking at what is coming their way, and well-meaning but ineffective politicos like my old school-mate Danny Kennedy of the UUP are making the right noises far far too late.

In Northern Ireland, the rule of law was sacrificed on poilitical grounds in 1997. We now await the sacrificial slaughter of our academic centres of excellence. Hope the people enjoy living with the consequences....

Following on from he horrors of 9/11, I'm sure many people were shocked when the news reached us that Flight 587 from JFK had crashedover Queen's only two months later on November 12th. It was an awful story and must have been so traumatic for those poor people in New York that were still in shock from seeing the Twin Towers downed. However, the cause of the crash has kind of faded into history...until now.

It seems that a captured al-Qaeda operative has told Canadian intelligence investigators that a Montreal man who trained in Afghanistan alongside the 9/11 hijackers was responsible for the crash of an American Airlines flight in New York three years ago. Canadian Security Intelligence Service agents were told during five days of interviews with the source that Abderraouf Jdey, a Canadian citizen also known as Farouk the Tunisian, had downed the plane with explosives on Nov. 12, 2001. The source claimed Jdey had used his Canadian passport to board Flight 587 and "conducted a suicide mission" with a small bomb similar to the one used by convicted shoe bomber Richard Reid, a "Top Secret" Canadian government report says.

Given his many on-the-record statements of support for Islamofascists, it's high time that Jihadist pin-up boy Abu Hamza (aka Captain Hook) was despatched forthwith to Guantanomo Bay for some good old US hospitality. The weenie UK authorities haven't a cluehow to deal with this evil man and it sends a disurbing message across the terrorist web that the UK is a relatively safe haven.

"Sometimes little things can tell you a lot and John Kerry's totally implausible story about his dog is an example of that. It is a classic psychopathic lie -- something said which earns momentary acclaim but which is uttered without any thought of its being found out as false.

It is highly comparable to Bill Clinton's lie that his wife was named after Sir Edmund Hillary when in fact Sir Edmund was an unknown New Zealand farmer at the time of her birth. Kerry's lack of any consistency in what he says from occasion to occasion has always seemed suspiciously psychopathic but I think this seals the diagnosis.

Given the chronic lying of psychopaths, this story also begins to makes sense. It claims that the details of his war record posted on the net by John Kerry are fraudulent: "I looked at that Web site and the first thing I looked at was Kerry's Silver Star citation. Guess what? It is for an action that took place in 1969, but it is signed by Secretary of the Navy John Lehman. Strangely, Lehman was secretary of the Navy from 1981 to 1987.

I am also beginning to see why Kerry made his outrageous claims about American war crimes as soon as he got back from Vietnam. The sampan incident and various others incidents indicate that Kerry himself was something of a war criminal and it seems to be a reflexive Leftist strategy to accuse others of what are in fact their own faults (Freudian "projection").

Anyway, America survived the psychopathic Clinton reasonably well so it should be able to survive a President Kerry. It could even work out in an amoral sort of way. A psychopathic President would have no compunction about nuking Mecca if that seemed like a good idea at the time (remember Clinton bombing the Serbs) and that could save as many American lives as the atrocity that another Democrat President committed over Hiroshima."

>> 27 Aug 2004

Edge of the Abyss

Did anyone see Channel 4's Edge of the City programme last evening? It featured the lives of social workers in Bradford, covering a range of different challenges. The programme was originally banned in May because the section of the footage dealing with the problem of sexual grooming by young Asian men was deemed too inflammatory to be broadcast at that particular time. I suspect most of yesterday's interest centred on this problem (particularly acute in the Bradford area), but my primary interest focused on the story of 17-year old Matthew Spaven, who had been released from a young offenders unit to complete his sentence under a tagging order.

Bradford is an unusual city. It contains the United Kingdom's poorest postcode (BD5); it has one of the highest birthrates in the country; a large Asian population; and proportionately more people living below the poverty line than any comparable urban area in the country. I spent much of my young life in Bradford, and I have worked there as one of the city's army of social carers. I was, therefore, unsurprised with most of the programme's content, but the degree of latitude afforded to Spaven by selective authoritative figures had me squeezing my 'stress ball' with a considerable application of pressure.

Law and order has broken down in Britain: Spaven was just one example of the phenomenon of lawlessness sweeping the streets and lanes of our nation. Edge of the City portrayed the exploits of a spotty adolescent who thumbed his nose at the authorities, broke numerous curfew orders, continued his life of petty crime and treated the people entrusted with his welfare as if they were scum. His story was not 'touching', it was maddening in the extreme. Britain has had to endure nearly four generations of a disciplinary culture orchestrated by rampant liberalism. Spaven and millions of others are the resultant products.

Contemporary society is awash with talk of 'Human Rights'. Yet with 'rights' come responsibilities. If an individual is prepared to endlessly abrogate his responsibilities, it is only fair that consequential rights should also be removed. I make no apologies for my belief that people like Spaven need to be taken to a public spot and birched. Perhaps then they would have some scintilla of respect and decency.

Today marks the 25th anniversary of the cold-blooded, calculated murder of Lord Louis Mountbatten. He was sailing on his private yacht, Shadow V, off the coast of Mullaghmore in the Republic of Ireland, when an IRA bomb killed him, his grandson Nicholas (14), Paul Maxwell (15), and the mother-in-law of his own daughter. Hours later, 6 soldiers of the Second Battalion Parachute Regiment and 12 soldiers of the Queen's Own Highlanders were murdered in separate explosions near Warrenpoint in Co Down.

Given that today marks a 1/4 of a century since the slaughter, I decided to have a look on Sinn Fein's website to see if there was any trace of repentance or remorse at such an evil act. Silly me, of course not!! Why should this movement need to feel apologetic for its heinous crimes when its supposed historical legitimacy has now been approved by 180,000 moilers at the ballot box? All I could actually find on the Brownshirts' web was this story about some terrorist low-life who mercifully starved himself to death in Parkhurst prison.

Seems strange that a party which is soooo quick to remind everybody else of their alleged misdeeds is notably reticent in bringing closure to the atrocities it committed. Never mind, it just gives we democrats another excuse to increase our level of indescribable loathing for Irish republicanism and the plebs who subscribe to its doctrines.

As part of the plans to grow ATW we are pleased to announce a new regular weekly feature provided by a brand new contributor to this tangled web -

"Court Hawk."

Here's the deal. Not a week goes by without some ludicrous sentence being handed out to miscreants in our local courts. In some cases, these are even worse than those handed out in mainland UK. Yet they are often buried away in the media undergrowth as the Northern Ireland judiciary appear to compete with each other to see who can produce the most ridiculous sentences.

"Court Hawk" will be circling to pick out the most newsworthy stories for our interest.

The areas of sentencing that we wish to examine include;

Murder in all its forms, even if plea-bargained to manslaughter,Serious assaults

Aggravated burglaries,Car-crime causing serious injury or death to third parties (excluding the car criminals themselves) Serious social nuisance such as persistent vandalism, intimidation, anti-social behaviour,Fuel smuggling and diesel laundering, Serious dumping and pollution

"Court Hawk" will be providing a weekly summary of the worst instances of Judicial stupidity. We will furthern develop the format over the week ahead but the plain intent is to highlight specific examples of justice gone very badly wrong.

"CRIME AND PUNISHMENT"should make you feel angry at the madness carried out in our Courts. My hope is that we can develop a central resource here that collates the most wretched instances of justice gone badly wrong - which could be used by those who then want to take this issue further.

We will shortly publish the first"Crime and Punishment" on ATW and I do hope you will find it stimulating reading. "Court Hawk's" talons are sharpened ready to pounce when justice goes wrong. Have a read and feed us back your thoughts please.

I note that traces of explosives have been found amid the wreckage of one of two Tupolev airliners that crashed on Tuesday, say Russian officials.

The FSB security service said at least one of the almost simultaneous crashes was a "terrorist act". Details of the discovery came after an Islamic group claimed responsibility for the crashes in a website statement.

In a website statement on Friday, a group called the Islamic Brigades said it had five people on board each aircraft. It warned this act would be followed by others "until the killings of our Muslim brothers in Chechnya cease".

Bill Clinton, on his book-promotion tour to Northern Ireland, has declared himself to be "a cheer-leader for peace." I'm sure the legally-minded Clinton must have accidentally stumbled across his words when "a cheer-leader for appeasement" is what he meant to say, I'm sure.

This ego-on-sticks grotesquerie goes on blather about how "if" John Kerry gets elected as President, he'll engage much more in N.Ireland. (Love the qualification and soaring confidence in Swifty Boat John - wonder who Bill thinks might make a good Democrat candidate in 2008..mmm....)

Naturally all the local politicial parties were there to suck up to the likely rapist, liar and philanderer-in-chief. Pathetic. The DUP had no reason to see him other than Petere Robinson's vanity which appears to be not far removed from Bubba Bill's.

Here's the thing; The newest debate over "the right of return" concerns that of ethnic Germans, at least 15 million of whom were expelled from their homelands at the end of World War II. These have suddenly become a matter of interest (see for example the Wall Street Journal's "War Echo: Ousted by Poland in 1945, Germans Want Homes Back," Aug 11, 04) for the simple reason that many of the countries who expelled German refugees after World War II have become or are becoming full members of the EU.

"So what is the real reason the Euroclowns have no interest in any "right of return" for ethnic Germans, but demand one for "Palestinians"? Simple. Granting such a right to ethnic Germans would not result in the demise of Israel, so the Europeans have no interest in it."

OK- game over for the Democrats! Us Bushies have Alice Cooper on our side. Says the great man; “If you’re listening to a rock star in order to get your information on who to vote for, you’re a bigger moron than they are. Why are we rock stars? Because we’re morons. We sleep all day, we play music at night and very rarely do we sit around reading the Washington Journal.”

He also reportedly said “when I read the list of people who are supporting Kerry, if I wasn’t already a Bush supporter, I would have immediately switched. Linda Ronstadt? Don Henley? Geez, that’s a good reason right there to vote for Bush.”

PS; Rumour has it that Britney Spears is a Republican. Oops - I did it again!

Well, I have to admit to being disappointed at this. Al-Sadr should have been carried out in a coffin - not been allowed to walk out. He will cause more trouble thanks to his Iranian puppet-masters and a draw here in Najaf was NOT the result that Coalition troops risked life and limb for.

Interesting take hereon the result of the Venezuelan election "won" by communist poster boy, Hugo Chavez.

"The nub of the problem is this: While exit polls conducted by the very reliable American firm of Penn, Schoen, and Berland showed Chavez losing by a large margin (59 – 41), the official results put Chavez free and clear by a vote of 58 to 41 percent. How could the exit polls be nearly 40 points off? The short answer is, they weren’t. Chavez, whose anti-democratic, pro-Castro sympathies are openly proclaimed (he tried to block the constitutionally-mandated referendum for months), stole the election."

Jimmy Carter has been quick to defend the Chavez victory and this article neatly dissects peanut brains contribution to anti-Americanism.

"In lieu of the O'Reilly method (randomly coming out in "the middle" of every issue) or the Matthews method (deciding, ab initio, that any criticism of Kerry could come only from bottom-feeding, politically motivated whores), there is still another method of evaluating the evidence, which is to evaluate the evidence.

For starters, 254 swiftboat veterans say Kerry is a fraud; 14 say he's a hero. Partisan considerations aside, which would be more difficult to do: Get 14 liars to keep a secret, or get 254 liars to do so? As a student of recent history, I defer to any registered Democrat on this question.

Of course, the 14 in Kerry's camp are not necessarily lying, being bribed, or hoping for a position in the Kerry administration – possibilities the media will never raise, I note. But we're talking about 35-year-old memories here; 254 memories to 14 memories is what we used to call "evidence."

>> 26 Aug 2004

Oh Plleeaassee!!!

After shaking hands and being saturated with Irish blarney in Dublin, Bill Clinton returned to British soil yesterday with a book signing session at Eason's in Belfast. There, he declared himself to be 'a cheerleader for peace' and promised that a Kerry administration would take a more proactive role in the 'Oirish peace process'.

The mere sight of this man parading around the streets of a British city - a man totally in thrall to a basically republican interpretation of Ulster history and politics - is enough to make me reach for the sick bag. I have read Clinton's autobiography as well as Godson's book on Trimble. As aforementioned, the most striking aspect of Clinton's subliminal intervention in the peace process was the extent to which he defended the stance of Irish nationalism, even when stalemate occurred due to the ongoing retention of illegal IRA weaponry by the Provisional movement.

I, like my ATW colleague David Vance, am very pro-America. However, my view of the United States has been tainted down the years by the cancer that is pro-nationalist Irish America. It is disgusting that a vocal lobbying sect, representing only a tiny fraction of the Catholic Irish Amercan community (itself only 6% of the total population) has been allowed to influence political evolution in an integral part of America's oldest, closest and staunchest ally. Is Clinton telling us that Kerry would be as one-sided and interventionist as he was? The vast majority of my sentiments towards Uncle Sam would be favourable. Nevertheless, where Ulster is concerned, my message would be: 'keep your bloody nose out of issues that do not concern you!!!!

This little Q&A makes my point that the Bard was NOT "the Stratford man"...does it make you wonder, I wonder?

After 250 years of the most intensive research by numerous scholars nothing has been discovered which unambiguously links William of Stratford-on-Avon with the plays that bear his name. All we know of him for certain are business or personal details such as baptism, marriage or death. No manuscripts or other documents of a literary nature by him or about him have emerged.

Q. Apart from six signatures, what other examples of documents are there which demonstrate literate activity? He is thought to have lived in London for some years while conducting a business, and maintaining a family, in Stratford. Apart from one letter addressed to him but apparently never sent, what letters from or to him, or other personal papers, have been discovered?

A. One business letter, apparently never sent.

Q. What references to him as the playwright appear in others' correspondence or diaries, or other contemporary documents?

A. None.

Q. The playwright was obviously a person of great education. What documentary evidence is there that Shakspere of Stratford had any education at any level?

A. None. The records from Stratford Grammar School for the period are lost. He did not attend Oxford or Cambridge or the Inns of Court.

Q. Many of the plays' sources were not published in English during his lifetime. Do we know that he was able to read them in the original languages?

A. There is no evidence that he could.

Q. Did he own copies of Ovid, North, Plutarch and the more than 100 other books recognized as sources for his plays?

A. There are no records that he had a private library, nor that he had access to anyone else's. He left no books in his will.

Q. If not, where did he see them? There were no public libraries, and books were very expensive and consequently precious. Even a genius has to acquire knowledge and skills.

A. We do not know. There are no records of his living in a wealthy household where books would have been available, or having a personal relationship with anybody who owned a library

Q. Where did he get the intimate knowledge of, for example, Court life and behaviour, aristocratic sports and pastimes, or Italian geography and customs which are all exhibited in the plays? Is there any record that he was ever at Court, or travelled to Italy, for example?

A. No.

Q. We usually expect to find parallels between an author's life in his or her works. Where are the personal biographical allusions to Will Shakspere in the plays? How intimate or convincing are they?

A. There are very few which can be identified, despite diligent searches by Stratfordian scholars, and many of those could be coincidences.

Q. Who paid him for writing the plays?

A. There are no records of anybody doing so but he is said to have retired a wealthy man, after his supposed career as a playwright.

Q. Do the inscriptions on the Monument in Stratford church actually name him as a playwright or poet?

A. No.

Q. What convincing documentary evidence is there to support the dates commonly assigned to the composition of any of the plays, assuming him to have written them?

A. None. There are no records of the dates of composition, or even of first performance, of any of the plays. The conventional dating is based on a number of assumptions, for example, that the plays were produced at the rate of 2 a year, without interruption. It is not an exaggeration to say that there is no evidence that anybody wrote the plays, except that they exist.

This is a sad little taleexposing the nasty intolerance that characterises daily life in certain parts of 21st century Northern Ireland. Several Protestant families have been driven out of North Belfast citing IRA intimidation as the prime reason for their leaving.

As one lady puts it, " I used to take my kids to school and get spat on and called all the lovely names under the sun. Three weeks ago they wrote IRA on my living room window and front door. I don't want to go but I don't have any other option. They are getting their own way and they are forcing us out. My grandmother is 91 years of age and she is also being forcedout."

Naturally the brownshirts from Sinn Fein were rushing to the media to deny that republicans were intolerant of Protestants - perish the very thought.

I despise this form of ethnic cleansing; it is always wrong to force anyone to leave their home because of their religious beliefs, ethnicity, or indeed any other such reason.

I remember reading this essay some time ago and thought I would share it with ATW readers. The essential point made here by the author is that modern day leftism owes much to Mussolini, that Blair's pragmatic economic model echoes that of the Italian tyrant, and that when leftists drone on about the "fascism" of the right - funnily enough they merely demonstrate their shocking ignorance of history. Read the article for yourself - a good primer in understanding where our friends on the left come from! Ciao.

It appears that science has finally settled the vexing question of global warming.

"After four years of one of the most rigorous peer reviews ever, Canadian Ross McKitrick and another of us (Michaels) published a paper searching for "economic" signals in the temperature record. McKitrick, an economist, was initially piqued by what several climatologists had noted as a curiosity in both the U.N. and satellite records: statistically speaking, the greater the GDP of a nation, the more it warms. The research showed that somewhere around one-half of the warming in the U.N. surface record was explained by economic factors, which can be changes in land use, quality of instrumentation, or upkeep of records. This worldwide study added fuel to a fire started a year earlier by the University of Maryland's Eugenia Kalnay, who calculated a similar 50 percent bias due to economic factors in the U.S. records.

So, to all who worry about global warming, to all who think that people threatening to blow up millions to get their political way is no big deal by comparison, chill out. The science is settled. The "skeptics" -- the strange name applied to those whose work shows the planet isn't coming to an end -- have won."

A very perceptive articlehere by Irish-American writer Patrick O'Brien. It deals with one of the biggest issue of our times - why do the Jihadists hate the US/Israel - and, more importantly, should we care?

A few regular contributors here on ATW seem to have got a bee in their bonnet because of comments I have made regarding Arabs. So, I thought this was an appropriate story to post showing exactly how decent and moderate some Arabs can be to those "oh-so-provocative" Israelis. Once again, the genocidal anti-Semitism that deforms Arabia is manifest - and yet, those of us who point it out are attacked. Funny old world.

This entertained me. Apparently the GCSE pass rate has "stalled" at only 97.6%. This is an outrage - just think despite all the years of dumbing down - 2.4% of those who enter GCSE's still fail it. Time to lower the bar, don't you think?

After all, the point of having an exam is that everyone passes, feels good about themselves, and that none are judged better than others.Honestly, it makes you want to weep.

I'm afraid the very mention of the UN makes me laugh! This corrupt gang has no role of any value that I can think of that could not be done more efficiently by an informal gathering of democratic nations. (Dang - there goes a whole big pile of UN members) So, this Reuters headline that I picked up care of the mighty UN-R-US merely confirms my views. The great UN brains reckon that there is far too much talk about this pesky terrorism business and that it is time we figured out that life is so much more complex, requiring the fine-honed solutions of the UN. Like in Rwanda, and Sudan. The US should stop funding the parasitic UN and make it start paying its own way - a greater waste of US tax-payers money I cannot envisage. (apart from sending it to John Kerry)

Check out this rubbish from Tom Griffin in the Irish World (the newspaper for those Irish happily residing in Britain who, simultaneously, campaign for British citizens in Northern Ireland to be stripped of their constitutional and nationalistic rights). It never ceases to amaze me just how much utter stupidity comes from the mouths and the pens of primary advocates of an all-Ireland state. In Griffin's case, it is his argument that a cumulative chain of causation stemming from a resurrected Stormont would sweep all before it, minimising 'dependency' on the British State and, thus, providing the ideal circumstances for a 'united Ireland' to emerge.

What a load of bollocks! Has it occurred to the likes of Griffin that any 'dependency' Ulster had on the rest of the United Kingdom was because of the terrorist warfare being raged by the same people he now believes are sufficiently rehabilitated to categorise them as units of democracy and democratic rule? Nationalists never talk of the dependency the Irish Republic has had on the European Union for much of its membership. People advocating the territorial expansion of a polity which still receives the equivalent of £6 for every £1 it contributes to Brussels' coffers can scarcely lecture on the pitfalls of dependency to anybody else.

Now we move on to the whole question of devolution as a vehicle to drive Ulster from the Union. If Griffin is so confident of such a sequence, perhaps he should inform we ardent supporters of the Union why we should therefore support something which would be to our fundamental long-term detriment? The dichotomy is not between 'Irish democracy' or 'British dependency', but between a stable and prosperous region of the UK - governed in the interests of its broadest number of citizens, or as a tool of a peace process designed to embolden and strengthen terrorist apologists. Griffin's bastardised formula for the objective of a bastardised constitutional entity is not one we Unionists are likely to endorse.